WE'RE IN JAPAN!

Nick and I got cheap, last minute tickets to Osaka, Japan! We found a business hotel close to Namba (a lively area in the southern part of the city) that had good reviews online and threw together a backpack of clothes and got on a plane!

We landed at Kansai airport and took the (very expensive!!) train into Osaka. We checked into our hotel - The Hotel Chuo Oasis - and found it to be pleasant and clean. The front desk staff was very helpful and gave us tons of discounts for sightseeing attractions.


Tonight we walked around Namba and were simply overwhelmed with the city. There are lights, sounds, music, statues, cartoon characters, people in costumes, noises...completely surrounding you and overtaking you. Everything is over the top and intense. We found this huge section of the city was covered walkways and arcades full to the brim with shops and restaurants and people. Casinos overstuffed with slot machines and gambling are on almost every corner. There are huge video game arcade buildings with floor after floor of video games. I'm going to post below a video of a guy playing a DDR type game where you have to hit the colored lights in time with the prompts on the screen...he was ridiculously fast. Outside on the streets bikes are parked everywhere and bicyclists fill the sidewalks and threaten to push you over or run you down. We had to jump out of the way many times for the wayward bicyclist, too busy texting to see where they were wheeling their bike. Business men in suits are scurrying around and girls dressed in fur trimmed shorts and spiky high heels chatter incessantly while eating deep fried street food. The signs, the ads, the noises...Nick and I walked around the city in a daze, full of unbelief and this strange sense of foreigness. Japan is NOT like Korea. We wrongly assumed that since we have become so comfortable in Seoul that we would also be comfortable in Japan. They are two entirely different beasts and it was odd to realize that Korea is home and we missed it when faced with this foreign, unknown, craziness that was Japan.


We were also shocked at how expensive everything was compared to Korea. We had to remind ourselves that the rest of the world doesn't dine out on $4 a night, haha. We found an inexpensive restaurant to try that looked clean and smelled gooood. We walked in and went to grab a table. There were a few waitresses and waiters but they promptly told us we couldn't order food from them. We had to order from a machine located at the front of the store. We were thoroughly confused by all the Japanese and the tiny pictures on the machine so we just picked two things and hoped for the best. We were pleased with our food, it was very tasty, but we weren't really sure what it was that we ate. Sometimes it is better that way.



After that we returned "home" to the Hotel and started to plan out what we will do during the next few days while we are here. Tomorrow we are going to SpaWorld in the morning and then exploring the city some more. :)